


Unquiet Dead

by SaltCore



Series: Tumblr Rewrites [4]
Category: Overwatch (Video Game)
Genre: Angst, Heavily Implied Double Agent Gabe, M/M, Mild Jesse Whump, Reyes stop compounding your son's abandonment issues jfc, background McHanzo, dad!gabe
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-06
Updated: 2019-08-06
Packaged: 2020-08-10 05:56:29
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,083
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20130454
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SaltCore/pseuds/SaltCore
Summary: He can connect the dots, but Jesse doesn't like what he finds.





	Unquiet Dead

Jesse rewinds the video again. Again. Again.

Jesus Christ.

Jesse’s only seen one person fight like that, and he’s dead.

Jesse drains his glass of whiskey and queues up the next clip. The door opens behind him, cutting a square of yellowish glare across the screen.

“Jesse?” Hanzo’s voice curls around his name, concerned. Jesse doesn’t hear him come closer, but the chair tips infinitesimally backward under the weight of Hanzo’s hands. Hanzo plucks the glass out of his hand and sets it aside, then drapes both arms over Jesse’s shoulders, clasping them lightly over his sternum. He smells of shampoo, and his still wet hair brushes across Jesse’s shoulders.

“It’s late,” Hanzo says.

Jesse grunts, lifts a hand to lay it over Hanzo’s. 

“Look’it this.”

Hanzo shifts to rest his chin on top of Jesse’s head. Jesse brings up two clips, side by side, and starts them both. Both show a man dressed in black, a white mask covering his face.

“That’s the same man, look how he moves. It seems military, oh—”

In one clip, the man is vaporized, reduced to dust. In the other, he runs off frame.

“The one on the left,” Jesse points to the first one, “is from the night Winston sent out the Recall notice. This one,” Jesse points to the other, “is from two months ago.”

“How?” Hanzo asks, leaning over Jesse to peer more closely at the screen.

“Dunno.”

“Why are you watching these?”

“Lena and Winston have run into this guy, worried about doin’ it again. Wanted me to have a look.”

“Do you know him?”

“Can’t say.”

Not for sure, anyway, but he’s a got a bad feeling.

* * *

Smoke swirls, black and thick, cut though through with red-orange flames. Jesse is crawling along the floor, his serape pulled over his nose, but his eyes and lungs are burning. His head swims from the lack of oxygen and the heat.

Shit. _Shit_. This is not how he wanted to go out.

He isn’t sure if he’s even going the right way, but the only other option is to lay down and die. And he can’t do that, not when there’s at least a chance of finding the way out.

He shoves a door open with his prosthetic and a wall of flame leaps out. All he can do is duck his head and hope it passes.

It does. He keeps crawling.

This is hell. He has to already _be_ dead, and this is hell. He coughs, his lungs spasming around the smoke. He thinks it shouldn’t matter, he craves smoke most of the time, why is this a problem all of a sudden?

Hell. Has to be.

There’s a crack above him, and it sounds like all the others, but this one is accompanied by a sudden force across his back. He cries out.

There’s a burning crossbeam on his lower back and legs. Jesse can’t twist himself over to try to shove it off, can’t pull himself out from underneath. He struggles against it away, gagging on the smoke. The pain and heat wear him down, and, dizzy from the lack of oxygen, he lets himself go limp.

He never should have chased that shadow in here. What a death to leave on the team. On Hanzo. But he can’t do anything about it now, except close his eyes and hope they forgive his memory.

A darkness descends, and he tries not to think about it, but suddenly the weight is gone. Someone grabs by his arm and belt, lifts him. The sudden shift disorients him completely.

He tries to open his eyes, but all he sees is black and fire.

After a few awful moments, Jesse is surrounded by cold air. He shivers violently with the shock of it. Whoever carried him drops him.

“Goddamnit, kid, I thought you knew better than that.”

The words seem familiar, but not the voice. It sounds like a mockery of speech, sharp and rasping. Still though, he knows something in that growl. Jesse tries to focus his smoke blurred eyes on his savior.

All he sees is a dark swirl of coat.

“Boss?”

* * *

Jesse saw him and immediately gave chase. Winston called him Reaper, and Jack just snarled, but Jesse knows who he is.

And he has to know _why_.

It should be impossible to tail a man who can dissolve into thin air, but somehow Jesse is doing just that. It gives him a bad feeling, but the need to understand is stronger than his sense of self-preservation. He leads Jesse into an alley. It’s oddly quiet, far removed from the fighting.

Jesse raises his weapon when he stops. Aims it right between the ghost’s eyes. He's seen too much of what he’s done lately to take chances.

The Reaper turns, letting his arms hang at his sides, those short barreled shotguns gleaming in the feeble light. He tips his head forward, something considering in his posture.

“This wasn’t smart, kid.” His voice almost sounds right, almost like it used to.

“I thought you were dead,” Jesse growls. “You let me think you were dead.”

He just laughs, a sick, low sound. It makes Jesse’s skin crawl, makes all his fine hairs stand up. Even then, Jesse still manages to find his bravery.

“What the fuck is this, boss? Working with Talon? You’re a good man.”

“Go,” he says.

“Not until you tell me!”

“I said go. That was an order, kid. You get away from here, away from them, go crawl into some desert cave until it’s over. And you’ll know when it’s over.”

Jesse grits his teeth, pulls back the hammer. He was a coward to leave when he did. He should have stayed with Gabe, no matter what he said, what anyone said. Maybe this wouldn’t be happening if he had.

“Don’t do this to me,” Jesse says, taking a step forward. “Don’t make me watch you make a mockery of everything you worked for.”

Gabe sighs.

“Don’t say I didn’t warn you, _mijo_.”

With that, he dissolves into a thick black smoke, drifting up and over the buildings around him.

He’s gone, just like that.

Jesse lets his arm fall, then spins and drives his fist into the nearest wall. The bricks crack under his titanium knuckles, but it doesn’t do anything to vent the hot mix of anger and hurt boiling in his chest.

He’s out there.

_He’s out there_.

And Jesse has no idea what he’s become.


End file.
